Piracy uploads increased by 50% in 2013

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Like a broken record (that you probably downloaded years ago anyway), there’s once again more data to suggest that anti-piracy efforts are ineffective. Not only has piracy increased in 2013, but it has done so at an unprecedented rate.

As this years draws to a close, it’s hard to say that there has been any measurable change in how piracy works in the world. Companies have continued their efforts to stop piracy, going as far as enacting strike policies against their customers for violating terms of service and a continued effort to sue uploaders who are “stealing” content. Unsurprisingly absent from these efforts are any signs of success. In fact, some recently released data seems to suggest that this year in anti-piracy efforts has resulted in more piracy than ever before.

While it is true that correlation does not equal causation, and that there are plenty of global factors that could explain a dramatic uptick in content uploading, the data is hard to ignore side-by-side. Content providers like HBO have continued producing superior content without providing everyone with a direct path to accessing it. In fact, this year has seen more unique and proprietary channels of great content. Netflix, for example, has produced several shows that are only available through a subscription with them. That content, along with countless hours of everything else, is uploaded at a pace that has never been experienced before.

TorrentFreak suggests that at one point nearly 18,911,877 users were participating in at least one torrent share. While not all torrents contain pirated material, it’s safe to say that a vast majority of users participating in these shares are accessing content that was not made available to them in a format they preferred.

As we move into 2014, there’s nothing to suggest that these numbers will go down. Who knows though, maybe the anti-piracy teams out there will figure out a foolproof plan to stamp out this heinous behavior. I bet it is even someone’s New Year’s resolution.